By now you’ve completed your first Weekly Check-In and set a goal for something specific you want to accomplish this coming week. Now, let’s focus on getting your head in the game to take action!
Top takeaways:
• Taking steps to get healthier is about more than how you eat, move, and sleep. It’s also about how you think about yourself and the journey.
• The way you think can widen or narrow the gap between what you intend to do and what actually happens.
• Includes five tips to help you use your mindset to reach your goals.
Today we focus on getting your head in the game so you can start taking action to reach that goal.
Why does this matter? Because taking steps to get healthier is about more than how you eat, move, and sleep. It’s also about how you think about yourself and the journey. At WW, we call this your mindset.
You’re a human being, right? Good. So you know that there’s often a gap between what you intend to do and what actually happens. The way you think is one factor that can make that gap bigger or smaller. For example, imagine you plan to have one cookie after lunch ... but you end up eating three. You might think “well, today is ruined so I should just start over tomorrow.” Or, you might think “well, I wasn’t paying much attention there so I will focus on eating more mindfully the rest of today.” It’s easy to see how these two different types of thoughts would likely lead your afternoon down two different paths.
At WW, our mindset pillar helps you develop awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It also helps you think realistically and flexibly, notice the good things, and see the big picture (not just the number on the scale). It also helps you leverage your strengths, accept yourself for how you are right now, and focus on what matters to you.
So how can you turn up the dial so your mindset can help you reach your weekly goal? Here are 5 ideas!
1. Rely on convincing evidence. Get a confidence boost by reminding yourself about goals you have reached in the past.
2. Get support. Having others cheer us on - especially people we can relate to and who want us to succeed - can convince us that indeed, we can do it.
3. Develop awareness. When you’re ready to take action, commit to paying attention to how the way you think and feel impacts what you do. Here’s a pro tip: Approach this with curiosity and intrigue, not judgment.
4. Practice using a growth mindset voice. That might sound like “sure, I haven’t done this before but I’m up for a new challenge,” or “if I hit a roadblock, I’ll use it as an opportunity to learn.”
5. Leverage your strengths. Think about what you already do well and how you can lean on those characteristics to help you accomplish your goal.
You’ve already set the stage for success by creating a specific, truly doable action-focused goal. Now shift your focus toward how your mindset can help you make it happen. You’ve got this!